Sergio Leone
Leone died on April 30, 1989 of a heart attack. He was 60 years old. Leone was infamous for his compulsive eating, which led him to become obese.
Before his death in 1989, Leone was part way through planning yet another epic - this time on the Siege of Leningrad during World War II.
In his later years, Leone had a falling out of sorts with Clint Eastwood, his most famous actor. When Leone directed Once Upon a Time in America, he commented that Robert De Niro was a real actor, unlike Eastwood. However, the two made amends before Leone's death. In 1992, Eastwood directed Unforgiven, a revisionist western for which he won an Oscar for best director. Leone was one of the two directors whom Eastwood dedicated it to, the other one was Don Siegel.
In 2004, Leone's son, Andrea, published a long treatment for a film entitled A Place Only Mary Knows, written by Sergio Leone, Luca Morsella and Fabio Toncelli. It is a story about two soldiers during the U.S. Civil War.
Critical opinion of Leone's film contributions was initially mixed, partly because the spaghetti western was initially considered a low-prestige genre. However, today Leone is widely acclaimed as a master filmmaker, receiving a 94% average filmography rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Leone's largest fanbase, however, has always been fellow directors. Among the many filmmakers who have claimed reference or inspiration by Leone's films include: Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, John Milius, George Lucas, John Carpenter, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Gore Verbinski and Stanley Kubrick (for his film Barry Lyndon). The cultural impact of Leone's films, particularly his early westerns, is also immense. The showdown sequences, the anti-hero, and Morricone's musical scores have become icons of cinema and pop culture.
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Recurring actors
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Trivia
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- When it was announced that Willem Dafoe would play Jesus Christ in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, Leone reportedly exclaimed "This is the face of a murderer, not our Lord!"
- On the set of A Fistful of Dollars, Clint Eastwood nicknamed Leone, "Yosemite Sam," because of his often belligerent temper.
- Leone's five westerns are famous for their post-production dubbing. One movie critic has said of them: "The guns sound like cannons, and the cannons sound like nuclear explosions."
- After viewing the notorious Italian cannibal film, Cannibal Holocaust, Leone sent a letter to the film's director, Ruggero Deodato, which stated: Dear Ruggero: What a movie! The second part is a masterpiece of cinematographic realism, but everything seems so real that I think you will get in trouble with all the world. Deodato was subsequently arrested, due to authorities believing that Cannibal Holocaust was a real snuff film.
- After completing the Dollars trilogy, Leone wanted to make Once Upon a Time in America in 1968. However, fans wanted another western, so he made Once Upon a Time in the West, not managing to do the gangster film for almost 20 years.
- A Jackson Browne song from his 2002 album, The Naked Ride Home, is entitled Sergio Leone, and stands as a tribute to him.
- Considered as some of his favorite films: Monsieur Verdoux, by Charlie Chaplin; The General, by Buster Keaton; Gone With the Wind, by Victor Fleming (a film he claimed it was his ambition to remake); The Seven Samurai and Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa; Warlock, by Edward Dmytryk; Shane, by George Stevens; Rio Bravo, by Howard Hawks; The Tall T and Buchanon Rides Alone by Budd Boetticher; and Stagecoach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and My Darling Clementine by John Ford[citation needed]. He was watching Robert Wise's I Want to Live! on his television when he died in 1989.
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Filmography
- The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei, 1959) (Mario Bonnard is the credited director; Leone served as assistant director and reportedly took over completion of the film when Bonnard became severely ill during production)
- Il Colosso di Rodi (1961)
- A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari, 1964)
- For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in piu, 1965)
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966)
- Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West, 1968)
- A Fistful of Dynamite (Giù la testa, 1971)
- My Name Is Nobody (Il mio nome è Nessuno, 1973) (producer, uncredited co-director)
- Once Upon a Time in America (C'era una volta in America, 1984)
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References
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External links
- Fistful-of-Leone.com
- Sergio Leone at the Internet Movie Database
- Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
- www.fistfulofwesterns.com A Fistful of Westerns
- www.Spaghetti-western.net The Spaghetti Western Database
- Biographical article at Once Upon A Time In America fansite
- Photo
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